Pte Johnson Beharry was awarded the Victoria Cross yesterday, Britain's highest honour for bravery. Apparently it was the first non-posthumous award for 40 years. He is an incredibly brave man and rightly regarded as a hero.

But I noticed something interesting when reading the front page story about the investiture in London's Evening Standard. Not once did they mention the fact that this man, who put his life at risk twice to save his colleagues and ended up in a coma, was born in Grenada. They mentioned that he used to be a painter and decorator but they couldn't bring themselves to recognise the fact that he was (whisper it) an immigrant. At least this morning's Metro which is basically last night's Evening Standard reheated did acknowledge his roots. But I still can't help feeling that Associated Newspapers found it convenient to ignore his origins at a time when immigration is a political hot potato and they lead the line in stoking the fire. Scum.

Spotted outside a Shepherds Bush cafe.
 

Ice Ream?

But Squeezet I like. It's got a kind of an Auld Scots vibe about it. I imagine that's OJ the way John Knox would have it, after enjoying the first blast of the juicer against the monstrous regiment of grapefruit.

I had an audition today. An actual proper audition, for a TV company! They were looking for comedians to do some improvisations and help develop scripts for a new comedy series. My friend's brother who works for the production company had seen NSN24 and wanted to know if I was interested. Well why not be?

I thought originally I would just have to do some improv with some folks but then I was told I had to prepare "3 minutes of comic material". This wasn't as terrifying a thought as it might have been as for some mystical reason I had just written some stand-up about a month ago - something I hadn't done for at least 10 years. Spooky. However when it came to the thought of actually performing it in public I did start to get cold feet. I've been practising in my kitchen and I tell you - I'm the king of THAT room. My cooker loves me and the fridge thinks I'm the new Willy Rushton (not sure how to take that). But it was strange: I would rather perform it to complete strangers than do the material infront of my friends & peers at last night's NSN workshop. I remember clearly that the worst thing about dying on my arse at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Club wasn't the room full of people booing me off after 30 seconds, it was afterwords, facing my 5 friends who were there. Oh the horror. However I thought I've really got to make myself do it and get some confidence in my schtick so I asked if anybody minded being an audience last night and everyone was up for it. God bless them, they were kind; I think they laughed fairly genuinely and they did give me confidence for today as well as some good suggestions.

Today's audition was over in a flash actually. It was up in Soho in a big hall looking like something out of Fame. It was fun just to be auditioning for a real show but not what I was expecting. I had planned to do my material like my stand-up act of yore - frantically rushing round the stage trying to make in energy and brio what I lack in cast-iron gags. But actually he wanted me to do it quite close up and sitting down if possible. I'm not sure that suited me particularly but I did it and then I was out - no improvisation required. That was maybe because the girl in before me had been bigging me up. Remarkably, when I arrived in the green room I met a girl there and we both recognised each other. It then dawned on us that we had a mutual friend and she was someone I had been trying to recruit for NSN. She stayed around and we had a good chat after my audition where she told me she had given me the hard sell - bless her. It maybe that I'm not cut out for this gig but at least I may have got another player for my own show - thanks Mel.

If they want to see me again there'll be a callback on Monday...

"will you blog this? - I can't be arsed"
How can I turn down such a request...

So congratulations to Mr Brett Burridge on the election of his first artwork to the hallowed post of "Best of the Board" on the legendary b3ta.com website. Fans of Brett's work (i.e. anyone who ever worked at Intapps/PeopleCube) will appreciate his latest piece on so many levels - he's an online genius.

You can see his offering in all its technicolour glory here.

Where to go for an fresh view of the new pope and the goings on at the Vatican? How about ianpaisley.org? Rolling back the years like Simply Red in a bucket of amphetamines it makes you think time travel really is possible, that or the last 400 years never happened.

This story is a particular beauty: The Vacant Seat Number 666 in the European Parliament

Last night's NSN was a big success. We had our largest audience of the year although I'm not sure that was due to more prominent listings but good work by our friends at getting their friends to come along. Whatever happened it was another good show. A learned friend of mine whose opinion counts for a lot in my books had been to see the show last year. He said it was good then but on last night's evidence it has come on a long way since then. That was great to hear because I really think it has. But I would still really love an unbiased opinion sometime - still need to get that reviewer in.

Ha ha! In my last blog I was bemoaning the failure of my publicity efforts for NSN24 - London's best comedy night ;) - and now a minor breakthrough. We've finally been listed in this week's MetroLife (the Evening Standard's free what's on guide). This may not sound like much but I tell you - it feels like a real shot in the arm for me! I've been faxing and emailing these guys press releases, venue info, the lot, for ages and FINALLY they acknowledge our existence. This is good because MetroLife doesn't list everything that's on - we are listed as one of only 3 comedy events in London on Monday night. Get in!

"Say not the struggle naught availeth...."

I haven't said much about the new season of NSN24 for a while. There hasn't been much to say beyond the fact that it's going really well and I'm having a lot of fun doing it. Going well artistically that is - audiences haven't been nearly as large as last year, although the shows have been consistently funnier I think. And I know who to blame for that.. It's, erm, me. It took me ages to get any flyers together (but thanks to Dom they are high quality and for the price of "Free" that does any theatrical empressario's heart good), I still haven't managed to lure any reviewers in and I just haven't pushed it hard enough. But I'm still plugging away. Apologies to all friends who get regularly spammed by me in a bid to boost audiences.

So anyway - we have a show on Monday night in Camden for any of you random websurfers who have found this page thinking that ateabutnoe is bound to be some new kind of porn you haven't heard of. Looky here for all about London's best comedy night. Absolutely - London's best comedy night, it is. But don't just take my word for it, come on down and see for yourself if it really is London's best comedy night. (Googlebomb anyone?)

I was talking with some friends about the election. We all said that we wanted to vote and that we all were interested in politics. But with all that we weren't sure who to vote for and we were generally annoyed with politicans and they way politics is carried out these days. For all that I am 100% news even the news is annoyingly predictable with highly spun, micro-managed party soundbites. What could we do about I thought..

How about some 21st century Gandhi-style Satayagrah? I would like to organise public sighing as a way of vocalising our disapointment at the level of political discourse. Here's how it works:

We get a group together and try and attend any political rally or briefing from the 3 main parties. Whenever anyone makes a clearly spun, anodyne political platitude or pointless trashing of the other parties we all sigh - like Marvin the Paranoid Android on steroids - and repeat as follows:

[SIGH...] "Oh God! Why do we bother..." [DEPRESSED EXHALATION]

Citizens, arise!! Le jour de gloire est arrivee...

This just in from the BBC election website. I've been trying to find out who is standing in my constituency. Excited to see that one candidate is called Rex Carter. Disappointed to see he's the UKIP candidate. If I wasn't in an anyone-but-Labour mood then Andrew Slaughter is just the kind of bucaneering name I'd like representing me. But sorry Andy - no dice. However the Lib Dem candidate suffers from the two first-names curse, Gary Malcolm. Not sure that's got the gravitas I need to send me over the barricades. Am I shallow?

Anyhow here is the the lowdown on my manor:

Ealing Acton & Shepherd's Bush This seat is to the west of London and is made up of the eastern part of the borough of Ealing and the northern part of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was a creation of the 1995 Boundary Commission which transferred in five wards of a Labour persuasion and removed two Tory-vote areas from the old seat. Within its boundaries are White City, the BBC's west London home, Wormwood Scrubs Prison, Queen's Park Rangers Football Club and the upwardly-mobile areas around Shepherd's Bush and Goldhawk Road [Wahey! Get in there]. It is an ethnically and socially mixed community. Just over 30% of the inhabitants come from ethnic minority communities. Housing tenure is pretty much equally divided between owner-occupation and renting, with 16.4% local authority ownership. This is mainly in the estates round White City and Wormwood Scrubs which are for Labour. From 1945-1974 the Acton area was Labour - except for a short period following a 1968 by-election. In 1974 the affluent suburbs of the abolished Ealing South went into the new Ealing Acton seat and this enabled the Tories, in the shape of the cycling baronet Sir George Young, to succeed against the tide. He held on here until the seat's abolition in 1997 when he was selected and elected for North West Hampshire. This seat had one of the highest numbers (10) of candidates in 1997 who polled only 5% of the vote between them. Labour's Clive Soley, who had moved over from the old Hammersmith seat, won with a majority of 15,650. This fell to 10,789 in 2001 - a majority of 29%. Mr Soley has been chairman of the Labour Party since 1997 but is standing down this time. The constituency will again be abolished at the next election and three seats in Ealing (including Acton) will be revived. Shepherd's Bush will once again go back into the Hammersmith seat.

So now you know - it's a lotus land, a utopia, a jewel set in a silvered sea. It's soon to be abolished!

Spring! When a young man's fancy turns to... flower arranging.

... but I am 100% news!

That's why you can't beat a good old-fashioned, honest to goodness general election. I love it.

Of course everyone says this will be another easy win for Labour but with a reduced majority. I for one won't vote for them this time - I promised myself on the last Stop the War march that I couldn't vote for them if they went through with that crazy war. They probably will get back in but I think it will be close: I hate to say it but the Tories are running a good campaign. They have been setting the agenda for the last couple of weeks and I think their slogan is genius: "Are you thinking what we're thinking". Of course I think what they are really saying is "Are your reactionary, knee-jerk assumptions the moment anyone mentions gypsies, immigrants or the euro the same as ours - well hop on board" but I have a horrible feeling a lot of people will go for it. It's certainly better than Labour's Simpson's derived "Forward not back" - how moronic do they think we are? I haven't yet worked out what the Lib Dem slogan is. As far as I can tell it's "Well _we_ didn't support the war on Iraq so nah!" which isn't catchy, but I like it...

I'm still persisting under the opinion that a guy I was at school with is going to stand as an independent in Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush. This comes from catching the last 30 seconds of an interview on Simon Mayo's Radio 5 show about 5 months ago and I haven't been able to find out more since. That would be great - anyone know how to find out the full list of runners and riders in your constituency?

Anyway - this little baby from Channel 4 news is sure to be most illuminating in the next 29 days. Fact check - holding politicians to account!

I'm sure Labour will play the fear card soon. Not fear of terrorism (erm... actually they probably _will_ play that one as well) but the fear of "Michael Howard PM" card. I just get the shudders thinking about it. But I wont bite. I've been thinking about how I would feel if I was part of the disafected rump of Labour voters voting Green or Lib Dem or Independent-bloke-I-went-to-school-with-party that allowed the Tories to sneek back in. And I think we (and Labour) would have got what we deserve. I can't abrogate my democratic duty to vote against what appals me. I don't think Blair did lie about WMD. The best evidence (which admittedly turned out to be rubbish) indicates that everyone thought Iraq had them. What was untrue was WMD being an issue in the first place. There may have been a case for overthrowing Saddam. It may not have been legal but it was certainly never put to us. So we were sold this spurious angle in a desperate attempt to justify American foreign policy. I can't vote for the people who dragged us that low.

Well it's a year since I was in Fernie. But that doesn't mean I don't check the ski hill website pretty much every day to see what's going on. It's been a winter of discontented skiers I think, made glorious spring by some heavy late season snow. But at least they've tried to keep spirits up on the website with some comedy snow reports. Today for instance:

And a veritable potpourri of conditions on the lower mountain: a medley, a pastiche, a hodgepodge, a smorgasbord, a salmagundi - well you get the idea: It’s variable.

Salmagundi ! Nice

My knee is taking a long time to get better after my ski accident. Admitedly the hockey tournament didn't exactly help. But the swelling has gone down since that and my lovely Physio has decided what I need is to have my patella lifted. So she's created this amazing tape construction:

Which is fine,although I can't walk! But now I have the fear... One day I'm going to have to take this thing off. I'm a man and I can't face the terror of a leg wax!